<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>devil don't cry by pepi_peachnbeans</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22987687">devil don't cry</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepi_peachnbeans/pseuds/pepi_peachnbeans'>pepi_peachnbeans</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Season/Series 11, Angst, Emotional Manipulation, Gaslighting, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Manipulation, Sad Sam Winchester, Season/Series 11, Stockholm Syndrome, Whump, fake sincerities, lucifer talking to sam in a dream, post cage trip, sam's in his feelings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:56:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,264</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22987687</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepi_peachnbeans/pseuds/pepi_peachnbeans</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>and fleetingly, sam wonders if this is how alex had felt, with the nest who raised her. how she could somehow be both so afraid of them, yet desperate to leave. that somehow, fear wasn't the only force rooting her in staying, that there was something more. something far more darker, twisted, some sick sense of love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lucifer/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>devil don't cry</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>season 11 really out here making me want to write 10,000 fics huh<br/>title from king 810 - devil don't cry</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sam isn't sure how seeing Sully again managed to make him both the happiest he's been in awhile, while simultaneously serving to be that factor that continues to nudge him towards the edge. He didn't want to be locked up in his room hosting a pity party for himself, yet again, but he finds himself doing just that. He knows that Dean is catching onto him, noticing how more he's been inverting back into himself, and it's only going to be a matter of time before it concerns Dean enough to the point where he is going to want to try and talk about it. Not that the two of them ever really talk through these super serious things together, though it should be put on record that Dean's tried. </p><p>Maybe it's the guilt that's holding Sam back from talking to Dean about it all, because Sam is still racked with so much guilt. And seeing Lucifer again, being in that cage for who knows how long, because time is utterly different in Hell, it's brought back all of these wounds he's thought healed, that he forgave himself for, but the truth is, he hasn't, has he? </p><p>It's something that's plagued him his entire life, literally. Starting with his mom, his dad, Jess. Jo and Ellen had died, Kevin, Charlie, Sam unleashed the fucking Darkness. Evil, loss, it surrounds him. Evil latches itself onto him, Meg, Ruby, even Lilith, he's the true vessel of Lucifer, and all these years later and Sam still just doesn't understand why it has to be him. </p><p>Back in the Cage, Sam tried to keep a strong face, and he did for awhile there. He'd kept holding out for Dean to come back and save him, to get him out, because that's the option better than the real one that was bouncing around Sam's head. That little inkling in the back of his mind reminding him of all that he's done, and that maybe he deserves to stay in Hell. If even it was Lucifer who was reaching out to him as God, it's the closest Sam will ever get, and maybe an eternity being the punching ball of two archangels should be his true destiny, maybe then no one else will get hurt, he won't let anyone else down. </p><p><em>It should be you up there</em>. </p><p>Sam found it futile to try and go to sleep, he knows how these nights always goes. It's simple really, a basic science, a routine Sam's gotten down to a t. Simply, he won't fall asleep. That, or he will for a hour at best and then the nightmares will force him to wake back up again. Even then, Sam still tries to fall asleep, and he does. </p><p>He falls asleep in a way that brings a pit to his stomach because while he's asleep, his mind is wide awake, and he knows what this means. Years of angelic interference has prepared Sam for something like this. So Sam is left in his bedroom, sitting up on his bed on the brink of tears. Hundreds of years have accustomed Sam to the feeling, the newfound cold in his room that is displaced, but as real as it can be. </p><p>"Lucifer." </p><p>Out from the very shadows of his room, Lucifer steps out, the very little light in the room hitting his face, but it isn't red, and it isn't blue, and Sam finds it less menacing that way. But Sam always has to deal with a lot, so less menacing is something he will almost gratefully accept. </p><p>"Sam." </p><p>"Got tired of pretending to be God?" Sam's voice is bitter as he raises his eyebrows. </p><p>Lucifer gives a half side smirk, the same that he always does when Sam bites back. "I wish we could have talked more Sam. It's not too late." </p><p>Sam's breath catches in his throat when Lucifer takes one step forward, then two, and by the third, Sam can't help the way that he flinches at the action. All of his instincts are telling him to run, to fight back, to scream, because here's Lucifer right in front of him, and yet Sam doesn't move. And it's different now, this isn't like the Cage where Lucifer could force him to stay, Sam still has his free will, and what is he doing with it? </p><p>Watching Sam flinch, Lucifer stops dead in his track several feet away. His face falls, and against the very little light left in Sam's room, he looks truly solemn. But he stops in his tracks nevertheless, and he doesn't move any further towards Sam, not in anger, not in fury. He doesn't trap him, he merely stands there watching, chin in his hand. "Is it because of what I said back in the Cage?" </p><p>"What?" Sam can't help but frown as soon as Lucifer seems to come up with his own reasoning. </p><p>"When I said that I didn't like you," he explains with a sigh as if it shouldn't be obvious. "I did promise to never lie to you Sam. I'm sorry, I was mad, and you know how I get when I'm mad." </p><p>Sam does, Sam knows all too well how Lucifer gets when he's angry. There were bad days, terrible days, and the absolute worst days. He always seemed to be in conflict with something, he always had to be going. If he wasn't arguing with Michael he was inflicting horrendous pain on Sam, it always varied, but it was pain nevertheless. Sometimes it would be easy, he would engage with Sam, they'd talk, Lucifer would taunt because he always did love it when Sam fought back, all it did was prove just how similar the two of them are. There would be days for pure amusement that he would tear Sam apart molecule by molecule, take Sam's soul in his hand and squeeze with all the power of Heaven on his side. And then the absolute worst had always come with his ability to trick and deceive. The days where he was too angry at everyone and everything that Sam was the one who would have to suffer for it. At the end of the day, or well, since days didn't exist down there, whenever his fury would begin to subside, give it hours, days, weeks, months, or years, Lucifer would put him back together and apologize. Come crawling back to him. </p><p>"I may threaten you, hell I might even follow through with it. I may tear you apart and use your blood to draw pretty little pictures on the walls, but I would bring you back. Kinda like old times, just you'd actually die." </p><p>Those moments in the Cage are some of the most muddled for him. Not the darkest, no certainly not that. Lucifer's manipulations were the darkest. The fake realities, the countless Dean's, Bobby's, dad's, Jess's, it was all of those which were the darkest. These moments with Lucifer had always been something different entirely. Not good, not bad, just somehow stuck in the middle of the pool categorized as just utterly fucked up. It would be the times that Lucifer would put Sam back together, hold him, tell him stories. </p><p>
  <em>Sam isn't sure how he is capable of feeling anymore. How could he? He had just gotten all of his nerves plucked out of him with a ridiculous pair of tweezers, and now came the part that Sam hated the worst, which may sometimes even be worse than the process itself, the healing. It was different, always would be, when it was Lucifer of Michael doing their own sick versions of divine intervention when they'd fix him. It was always a different thing entirely when it was Hell doing it. The process had always been slow and would bench Sam, giving him the only peace he can get until the process ends or someone gets impatient. Though it was always the second one because neither archangel had ever been known for their virtuous patience. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sam could still feel though. The way his body sags against the other, the way he lets it. The way a hand would brush through his hair. "I do love your hair Sam. Never do cut it, it'd make me sad." </em>
</p><p>Funny how cutting his hair is the literal one thing Lucifer never did to him. </p><p>"Don't worry your pretty little head," Lucifer reaches out from where he's at and his hand touches the top of Sam's head and he flinches again. Lucifer watches the action with an interest again, almost as if this is jut some experiment and it makes Sam shift in discomfort. He's always hated that look, and he's hated more what followed. "I got the juice for it. I'm an archangel after all, which is why you need me, isn't it?" </p><p>"Need you?" Sam repeats, his voice incredulous with a hint of anger. Never once has he need Lucifer, and that won't start because of the apocalypse of the year. "I don't need you."</p><p>"The world does Sam," Lucifer's voice drops to a lower whisper. "The world, you know I can stop her." </p><p>It's one of their only winning chances, and Sam knows that. But he couldn't then, and Sam isn't sure if he can now. But even then, he can feel his resolve slowly slipping, because maybe they're right, Sam is the reckless one. Biting his lip, Sully's words echo around in his head, <em>You saved the world Sam. You're a hero</em>. The tears well up and Sam glances away from Lucifer. </p><p>"I need you Sam." </p><p>Those words feel like a punch in the gut, though Sam knows by personal experience that physical violence would have hurt less than that, than those words. A simple three, but they're impactful and utterly too much. But Lucifer has never known the concept of mercy, it's too foreign for him to understand. </p><p>"To do this Sam, I need you. I want you with me. I know Sammy, you're afraid of what happened last time. It doesn't need to be that way, not this time." Lucifer steps closer now, given only one or two more steps and his knees will be knocking against Sam's. "I know you liked the power that drinking the demon blood gave you. But it left you defiled, a monster. Unclean, especially in the Biblical sense." </p><p>And in that very moment Sam is positive that he hates himself. He utterly fucking despises Sam Winchester with his whole entire being. Lucifer closes that last gap of personal space, the only true physical barrier between the two of them. The tear rolls down Sam's face as Lucifer's knee hits his, and while Sam is taller than Nick's vessel is, Sam is the one sitting after all, and so it's Lucifer who bends down slightly as the waist, cooing as his right hand wipes the tear away. "I'm here this time Sam. I'm here. They can't hurt you." </p><p>Too many emotions well up in Sam and he wants this to stop. For once in Lucifer obnoxiously long life, he just wished that the archangel would actually just shut the fuck up. "I don't need you protection," he growls out, chin and neck jerking to the right which throws Lucifer's hand off his face. </p><p>"You're right," he agrees and throws his hands up in a surrender. "I know just how handy you are Sam. But sometimes you lack conviction. The true strength you can wield. I've seen it before in you Sam, I've felt it, I was in your head once. Soulless, you were peaking. When you tried to find your brother after he became a demon?" With a small shake of his head and a laugh Lucifer nods. "Oh yes, I do know all about that. But look at what you did, what you were capable of." </p><p>"I was horrible when I had no soul!" Sam had no morality then, no true understanding of others, a lack of caring. He had let Dean of all people get killed by vampires. "I had no-" </p><p>"Humanity. Yes, I know." Lucifer untucks his hands from his pockets and points at Sam's heart, the tip of his finger just barely brushing the fabric of Sam's sweatshirt. "And your soul was damaged, and for that I'm sorry. Michael's not. Michael doesn't understand you, me, or us. But I'd still take you now, broken soul or not Sam, because no matter what, it's still you. You're still Sam." </p><p>And that's all it takes, it's that easy to break Sam Winchester. Those words alone ring around his head and the tears that have been threatening to spill this entire time begin to stream down his face and he feels all to childish. It isn't that he's always felt alone, but in a way he has been, and he's never been normal. And now he's fucked up beyond repair, unfixable. Sam doesn't like to think about it, but he can still remember the wall crumbling down, how Sam crumbled with it. It nearly destroyed him, and he's always felt like a shell of who he used to be, and that's why seeing Sully again has done all this to him. And standing right in front of Sam right now is probably the only other being in this universe that gets it, but even then he hasn't been the fairest to Sam. "You knew how much I wanted God to reach out to me. You knew I'd believe it." </p><p>"I'm the<em> devil </em>Sam. I'm not always nice." Lucifer hisses as he leans in a bit more, and Sam flinches again more silent tears begin to stream down his face. It's enough to make Lucifer hesitate, and exhale through his nose before he pulls away just a bit again. "But I will always make it up to you Sam. It got you to come to me, didn't it? You wouldn't any other way, I had to try. And then I realized that it didn't work, why do you think that I'm ere now instead of not doing something worse? Because Sam you know I can do so. Much. Worse." he accents as he jams his finger against Sam's chest, right above his heart with each punctuated word. The anger fleets away again as he lays his hand flat against Sam's chest. "But that's besides the point, isn't it?" </p><p>"Is it?" Sam asks, and he's being genuine. "Because I think you're desperate." </p><p>For the first time in awhile, Lucifer doesn't respond. He doesn't snap in anger, and his fist doesn't snap against Sam's face. It's because of that that Sam knows what he's said has struck a nerve in Lucifer, now it's whatever Lucifer decides to do with that, well, Sam doesn't know. </p><p>"And you aren't?" Lucifer finally asks after several seconds have passed. "Really, Sam. Are you not desperate as well?" </p><p>"Not desperate enough to be your bitch." </p><p>"I believe you," Lucifer says as he sinks down on the bed next to Sam, so close that there shoulders and hips are touching. "I do. I know that you're stubborn, defiant, a lot like myself. We're similar Sam, and I get that. You don't have to roll over for me. Everyone else can, everyone else should, but not you. There's not fun in that, now is there?" He watches as Sam still looks away from him, but in the very little light, Lucifer can still see the glimmer of tears. "This isn't because God decided this is what needs to happen, he's left long ago. It isn't anyone telling you to, I'm not telling you to. This is your choice Sam. This is all your choice." </p><p>"A choice I don't want!" Sam shouts now, his own voice ringing against the walls in his room, and he'd almost feel bad for being loud enough to wake up Dean, except he remembers that this is a dream and Dean can't hear him, and maybe that's why Sam doesn't fight the whimper that slips out as soon as the last syllable slips passed his lips. </p><p>"You wanted to be normal. You wanted to be saved. And this is tough, I know it is. I know Sammy." </p><p>"Stop being so nice to me!" Sam's voice gets lost in his tears as he tries to turn away. </p><p>Shaking his head, Lucifer watches as Sam still manages to somehow turn away from him, to try and shun him. Bring a hand up, he touches Sam's shoulder and turns Sam back around to face him. His grip isn't particularly tight, and really, he isn't forcing Sam to, Sam's body is pliable underneath his hands and lets Lucifer guide him. "That shows just how cruel the worlds been you you Sam. Isn't it bad for me, and I mean me, of all creation to be the only who who truly, <em>truly</em>, understands all of this? But I like you Sam, I like you, and I know you hate me. But let's make this right." </p><p>Sam sobs now and let's himself drop forward and Lucifer catches him easily enough. Body shaking, he presses himself closer to Lucifer, uncaring of just how cold it is, because all he wants is comfort. And fleetingly, Sam wonders if this is how Alex had felt, with the next who raised her. How she could somehow be both so afraid of them, yet desperate to leave. That somehow, fear wasn't the only force rooting her in stay, that there was something more. Something far more darker, twisted, some sick sense of love. Lucifer holds him in his arms though with no complaint. He holds Sam's head against his chest, the hand on his back rubbing small and soothing circles as the fingers tangle in his hair and brush lightly. </p><p>It reminds Sam almost of how Jess used to hold him late at nights. How she didn't care how much bigger he was than her, and she would just pull him close to her, and that notion just serves to make Sam cry harder. How much of a fuck up can he be? Just how much more fucked up can he get? No, not because he's considering taking up the devil's offer, not that he was thinking of letting Lucifer wear him to the prom to take care of Amara. But that he's a fuck up because he's actually listening to Lucifer, and part of him that Sam wishes were smaller, but it isn't. The truth is, it isn't, and that part of Sam is begging for Lucifer to like him, to want him, to <em>need </em>him. </p><p>"Don't cry," Lucifer's voice sounds final, and Sam looks up to see the all too familiar golden light.</p><p> </p><p>In the morning, Dean is already in the kitchen eating. There's a plate made for Sam, and as he stumbles in, Dean doesn't say anything, only shoots him an odd stare, but he gestures to the plate. Sitting down, Sam keeps his gaze down and locked onto the pancakes in front of him. </p><p>"Anyways Sleeping Beauty, I think I found something."</p><p>He can't look Dean in the eyes, not now. Not when his resolve had broken, not when he really is this weak. But there's a rumble in the very back of Sam's mind, that<em> this is many things Sammy, but it isn't weak</em>. </p><p>Cocking his head to the side, Sam closes his eyes for just a second as he breathes in. Taking a long sip of his coffee, he reopens them to see Dean still staring at him expectantly. "So, what do you got?"</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>